Last set of pics from the first leg of the castle trip weekend.
There is a small collection of arms and armour in one of the rooms, mostly from the sixteenth century. I have no knowledge if they have any connection with the castle or were purchased to decorate the rooms post the 1908 renovation. Most of them are racks of various styles of halbards and polearms, with a couple of incomplete half armour. There are some crossbows with windlasses on the wall and an interesting wooden saddle, which could be earlier sixteenth century, all of which are not open to close inspection due to where they currently are hung on the walls.
In the artillery tower is...erm..artillery. Some small iron cast barrels on wooden carriages that clearly are not their original ones and a large cannon from the late 18th century, I would estimate it as a 24 pounder (but I stand ready to be corrected as this is not my area of expertise).
Overall the castle lived upto expectations and I'd recommend a visit. Clearly the rebuild and restoration was done with the immense resources of the Kaiser and you cannot imagine such a feat being undertaken these days. It has been done sympathetically and for the time when it was done, used all the available information to make it as authentic as possible.
I should post the next castle visit here if anyone's interested, hopefully by tomorrow...